(Auteur) On the Aventine Minor, the oratory of Santa Silvia was home to a community of oriental monks, who, in the first half of the seventeenth century, created a typical Palestinian cemetery with a small monastery that expanded with the growing prestige of the community. The construction of the Basilica of San Saba, above the oratory, was by a group of monks, “the Benedettini di Montecassino,” who lived there in the middle of the tenth century. The substructure was only recovered in the early 1900s. The study of this architectural structure is particularly interesting because there were no complete surveys and the available documentation, as far as we know, was limited to a graphical plan and section. For this reason and due to the archeological significance, it has been selected as a national research project (PRIN 2010–2011). The research has requested detailed documentation through laser scanning and photographic-based documentation. The goal of the present work is to produce a documentation of the oratory from CAD model to the BIM construction.

(Auteur) For years, the Laboratory of Geomatics of the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria has undertaken an interdisciplinary project for the recovery and dissemination of information regarding the cultural-artistic and archeological heritage of the metropolitan area. The combined use of geomatics technologies (laser scanners, GPS positioning, digital photogrammetry, remote sensing, GPR) allows on the one hand to investigate objects and artifacts, providing metric, form, and location information; and on the other, to catalog information and make it accessible to the community. Indeed, the digitalization and reconstruction tools of 3D models can be the answer to the limits related to communicability in the archeological sector. Precision, detail, and very accurate photo-realistic reconstructions are particularly useful for virtual and augmented reality applications, integrating them in the devices used on a daily basis. The present note concerns, therefore, the acquisition of information using the point cloud from UAVs and laser scanners, the subsequent 3D modeling, and their representation in an augmented reality (AR) environment using mobile platforms. The application was tested on the church of Sant’Antonio Abate, located in the North of Reggio Calabria, which according to studies is the only evidence of medieval architecture in the territory of Reggio Calabria.

(Auteur) Over the last years, the area of conservation and enhancement of cultural heritage has benefited from new surveying methodologies. In particular, laser scanners and the latest evolutions in digital photogrammetry and processing software based on structure from motion and multi-view stereo algorithms allowed to achieve 3D models of the status quo whose features include precision suitable for restoration scales and high-quality textures. Besides methodological and technical issues, another key requirement for any intervention on this kind of buildings is their full, in-depth knowledge, which includes building design, modifications’ timeline, current conditions, present-day and historical causes of degradation etc. In this view, surveys are a valuable asset for the investigation of historical sources. The present work investigates historical photographic sources, focusing on the possibility of orientation by means of photogrammetry techniques, which provides an additional texture layer as a support tool for historical analysis. The paper displays a case study featuring the availability of a reference survey, which allows validation of the results, and two other cases highlighting the importance of this kind of documents to restoring teams.

(Auteur) The paper provides some operative replies to evaluate the effectiveness and the critical issues of the simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM)-based mobile mapping system (MMS) called ZEB by GeoSLAM™ https://geoslam.com/technology/. In these last years, this type of handheld 3D mapping technology has increasingly developed the framework of portable solutions for close-range mapping systems that have mainly been devoted to mapping the indoor building spaces of enclosed or underground environments, such as forestry applications and tunnels or mines. The research introduces a set of test datasets related to the documentation of landscape contexts or the 3D modelling of architectural complexes. These datasets are used to validate the accuracy and informative content richness about ZEB point clouds in stand-alone solutions and in cases of combined applications of this technology with multisensor survey approaches. In detail, the proposed validation method follows the fulfilment of the endorsed approach by use of root mean square error (RMSE) evaluation and deviation analysis assessment of point clouds between SLAM-based data and 3D point cloud surfaces computed by more precise measurement methods to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed approach. Furthermore, this study specifies the suitable scale for possible handlings about these peculiar point clouds and uses the profile extraction method in addition to feature analyses such as corner and plane deviation analysis of architectural elements. Finally, because of the experiences reported in the literature and performed in this work, a possible reversal is suggested. If in the 2000s, most studies focused on intelligently reducing the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point clouds where they presented redundant and not useful information, contrariwise, in this sense, the use of MMS methods is proposed to be firstly considered and then to increase the information only wherever needed with more accurate high-scale methods.

(Auteur) Change acts as an inherent characteristic of the landscape, and expresses dynamic interactions between its tangible and intangible elements. While the documentation and analysis of spatiotemporal patterns have been broadly discussed, major challenges concern the design of task-oriented, user-friendly landscape visualizations. Geographic information system (GIS) techniques and approaches from visual analytics may bring solutions to those questions. This paper considers the milestone documents for the representation of cultural heritage, and proposes a workflow for assessing the feasibility of the space–time cube concept in landscape representation. The usability of the visualization was examined during the interview with domain experts and potential interdisciplinary users. The evaluation session covered benchmark tasks, feedback, and eye-tracking. The performance of the space–time cube was compared with another spatiotemporal visualization technique and measured in terms of correctness, response time, and satisfaction. The Royal Castle in Warsaw, which was registered in 1980 as a part of Warsaw’s World Heritage Site of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), served as the case study. The user tests show that the designed space–time cube excels for the completion rate; however, more time is required to provide answers to question tasks focusing on comparisons. Together, the case study and feedback from domain experts and participants demonstrate the benefit of the space–time cube concept in designing landscape visualizations.